


heart beats so quickly

by HorribleThing



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 15:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1310239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HorribleThing/pseuds/HorribleThing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hates the physical therapy exercises he's been left with after the accident that killed his brother, that could have killed him.</p>
<p>But Jade offers an incentive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heart beats so quickly

**Author's Note:**

> So here's some setup: This takes place in a SBurb free universe where Dave and Davesprite are twins. Davesprite survived a car accident that killed Bro, and injured him pretty severely. They currently live with Doctor Lalonde and Rose.
> 
> As a warning, this contains some brief underage fumbling of a sexual nature.

It should all be so much easier and he hates that it isn’t. He hates that shoulder shrugs leave him drained and that flexing his wrist hurts more than anything that simple ever should. So he puts the exercises off or quits halfway through them, and today isn’t any different. It doesn’t matter that today Jade is here with him in his new room (that still doesn’t feel like it’s his), watching him to try and make him actually follow through instead of just lying about it. He remembers racing Dave only months ago, the two of them showing off for Jade and laughing, and it was all so effortless. But things are different, now. Now he’s tired.

(He’s tired of a lot of things. He’s tired of always hurting and doctors telling him he’s not trying hard enough and the sad way Dr. Lalonde looks at him and the pity grades he got from teachers before school let out. He’s tired of Dave’s moodswings and not feeling like he’s his twin’s other half, tired of missing the easiness of having someone he could always count on being in sync with, even though sometimes that hurt, too. He’s tired of the moments where he forgets that Bro is gone, because they’re always followed by the moments where he remembers.)

“Come on! You’re almost done!” she says when his break in activity starts to look less like a momentary pause and more like an ‘I’ve had enough of this shit.’

“This must be really boring though. Don’t you have better things to do with your life than just sit here and watch me do this shit? Lalonde has like five billion cable channels. Most of them are probably just as shitty as anything else on TV, but I bet we could find some old cartoons and get freaked out by what the kids used to come up on.” Rose and Dave would probably join them eventually when they get home from whatever they’re out doing, and maybe it wouldn’t be the greatest but it would be better than sitting there with her staring at him expectantly.

“Nope! I want to watch you do your exercises. Maybe we could do that, later though. Ooh, you should invite John over if we do.”

He sighs and drags his (good) hand through his hair, before muttering, “I just don’t feel like it okay? Can we do something else?” Except maybe that was the wrong thing to say, because she’s looking at him so concerned now, and he’s hated that for a while because he always overanalyzes it.

“You just have one more set. If you finish I’ll,” she trails off for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip. “I’ll let you touch my boobs.”

What.

“If you want to!” she adds hastily.

He wants to know who put her up to this. Definitely not Dave because they have rules, but John isn’t so protective of his cousin that he wouldn’t use her to pull another god awful prank. And he wouldn’t put it past Rose to try and see if he had ‘recovered to the point of regaining interest in sexual activity.’ Except those would require Jade playing along. And Jade can be bossy and has a terrifying streak if someone manages to get her riled up, but she’s not cruel.

He knows that when he was unconscious, Jade spent as much time as should could at the hospital by his side.

And he knows that Jade spent her nights with Dave, in the same room and maybe closer, until her Grandpa thought it was a bit too much and she had to go back home.

(But he still hasn’t figured out how much any of it means. Except that maybe they’re both breaking that rule.)

“Fuck, I knew I shouldn’t have asked, just forget it okay?” He’s waited too long to say anything and now Jade’s skin is flushed and she won’t look at him as she grabs her phone and goes to put it in her bag. He needs to say something to make her feel better because that kicked puppy look is going to be the end of him.

“Are you serious?” Yeah, that one is really smooth. But she looks up at him, startled.

“Well yeah. I wouldn’t have asked you if I wasn’t. I mean… I figured that you’ve been working hard and you’re a teenage boy that likes girls and so I thought it might be something you would be into. I’m pretty sure it’s a thing that teenage boys like. And I know my boobs aren’t big but I thought you might be interested.”

Of course he’s interested. But the fact that it’s Jade makes things so much more complicated. Still, nodding his head yes is a pretty simple gesture.

“You don’t have to say yes if you don’t want to.”

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s a passable incentive.”

Jade laughs then and puts her bag back down on his bed. His throat feels tight as he does the set, raising his arm over his head slowly while he supports his wrist. Every repetition makes his heart beat a little faster in a way that has a little to do with the exercise and more to do with the countdown in his head. When he finishes, he half expects her to laugh and say she knew that would get him to finish. Instead, she walks up to him and takes his hands, carefully placing them over the topmost button of her gauzy heart-print shirt.

“Really?” he raises an eyebrow as he asks, because he didn’t expect this this to be part of the bargain.

“You have to work on your fine motor skills,” she says, trying to contain a smirk that mostly people would call ‘vaguely asshole-ish’ but he can only think of as ‘cute.’

His hands fumble as he unbuttons her shirt, and he’s not sure if it’s because his coordination has gone to shit or if it’s nerves because what the fuck is even happening. He’s half certain that he’s only dreaming, and if his past dreams like this are anything to go by he’ll probably pop a boner and Jade will tell him how disgusting he is and storm off to go be with someone that actually has control of their hormones. (Rose would have a field day with that one.) Except the Jade in his dreams doesn’t look as nervous as this one does. Dream Jade always seems so confident, has the same attitude that she has when she gardens or talks about what the universe is made of.

Her smile is shy and hesitant as she briefly looks him in the eyes before she looks back down at his fumbling hands and then shivers. Maybe he shouldn’t be doing this.

Except he’s reached the bottom button of her shirt and she shrugs it off, moving his hands to the bottom of her camisole before she says quietly, “Only over my bra, okay?”

He manages to get out a “Y-yeah,” and hates the way his voice catches in his throat. But she raises her arms and he pulls her camisole up over her head and drops it to the floor.

Her bra doesn’t look like he thought it might, maybe more like a swimsuit top. It’s lacy and covers more skin than he was expecting, but the fabric is printed with bright colored flowers, practically neon, and it’s so Jade and not some stupid redtube fantasy that his stomach twists and he stares. He’s seen her with less on. They’ve hung out by Rose’s pool every summer since they met. But holy fucking shit does context make everything different.

He slowly reaches out and touches her, cups her breast. It feels like a weird thing to do without much prelude, and he’s torn between feeling too awkward to continue and not wanting to stop ever. Because he’s actually touching Jade and he knows he’s not supposed to, but yeah he has sort of wanted this. He runs his thumb in slow circles over the lace and squeezes gently, just a little. She shivers, and it doesn’t matter that it’s the middle of summer and sunlight is streaming through the window, because Jade still has goosebumps all over.

“This hand, too,” she says, taking his other hand, the fucked up one, the one that he hates now, between hers, moving it over her other breast, and he sort of likes how his hands cover her. The movement is stiffer, less smooth, but he tries to mirror the motions of his good hand as runs his hands over her gently, feeling the warmth of her skin through soft fabric.

Her heart is beating so quickly under his fingertips.

But then his hand twitches hard like a fucking traitor and Jade winces so he pulls his hands back on instinct and oh fuck does that hurt. And the moment is over in a sudden explosion of awkward and awful. Maybe he should consider himself lucky that it lasted that long, but mostly he feels like the head of the class at Chump Academy.

“Shit! Fuck! I am so sorry,” he says as Jade carefully rubs her boob, which would be a lot more attractive if she didn’t look like she was sort of in pain. He can’t tell if she’s sensitive or if he just grabbed that hard, although he probably shouldn’t think too much about the first one.

“It’s okay.” Jade smiles before she bends down and picks up her camisole.

“Thanks. That was…nice,” he tells her as she pulls her shirt back on. He’s half turned away even though modesty is probably a little pointless now.

“Nice?”

“A Plus tits. Would touch again.” And saying something as inappropriate as that almost makes him feel like things are back to normal.

“Wow! I’m glad that I have your seal of approval,” she says laughing, her grin wide and her eyes bright, and he can’t stop himself from smiling, too.

Then Jade leans up and kisses him on the corner of his mouth.

If he turns just a little, he could kiss her back.

**Author's Note:**

> I really want to write more in this universe but I haven't been able to.


End file.
